


Stand at the Door and Knock

by onethingconstant



Series: Agent Carter Forever [3]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky doesn't want to be saved, Canon-Typical Violence, Cryostasis, Dreamwalking, Family of Choice, Foreshadowing, Gen, Hugging, Insomnia, Nightmares, Peggy is not dead, Peggy never dies, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Precognition, hey wait is that Peggy Carter, random Biblical references, save Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-14 04:49:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7154279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onethingconstant/pseuds/onethingconstant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“It’s three a.m.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Was it? He rubbed wearily at his eyes. “Okay,” he said. “It’s three a.m. So why are you awake?” </i>
</p><p> <i>Wanda Maximoff rested her long-fingered hands on her hips and cocked her head at him. “Do I really need to answer that?”</i></p><p>Steve can’t sleep. Wanda decides a psychic visit with Bucky will help. Things do not go as planned, but that’s not entirely a bad thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Up All Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Delodevyat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delodevyat/gifts).



> For delodevyat, who had a difficult day and deserves some fic-hugs.
> 
> (Title because I can't stop using Biblical references with Steve and Wanda. I don't get it, either.)

“Steve.”

He jolted upright at the sound of the voice, producing a chorus of angry squeak from the rickety kitchen chair and the equally rickety kitchen table. He looked down and realized he’d been staring for hours at files that were either in some kind of code or using an alphabet he couldn’t read. And he was too tired to be able to tell the difference.

“H’lo, Wanda,” he mumbled.

“Steve.” She strolled into the tiny safehouse kitchen, her hands clasped behind her like a mischievous schoolgirl. The red glow of her power illuminated the tips of her hair like St. Elmo’s fire. “It’s three a.m.”

Was it? He rubbed wearily at his eyes. “Okay,” he said. “It’s three a.m. So why are you awake?” 

Wanda Maximoff rested her long-fingered hands on her hips and cocked her head at him. “Do I really need to answer that?”

Steve grimaced. “I guess not.” Between the death of her twin, the loss of two homes, and the accidental killing of hundreds of innocent civilians, Wanda was currently the poster child for what Hawkeye was calling Team Night Terrors. Her frequent awakenings were even worse now that she was living in close quarters with a merry band of superheroes who had their own—

Oh. _Oh._

Steve leaned forward slowly and thumped his forehead, just once, on the tabletop.

“’m sorry,” he mumbled into the indecipherable papers.

Wanda gave a rueful snort and dropped into the chair across from him. It made no noise at all, which Steve tried not to find irritating. One of the few downsides to his new body was that the world was suddenly made of Kleenex and papier-mâché—everything was breakable. It wasn’t Wanda’s fault she didn’t have the same problem. Not her fault she weighed a buck twenty soaking wet and was magic to boot. Well, maybe that last one.

“You look like you punched yourself in the face,” she announced, far too cheerfully for three o’clock in the morning. “When was the last time you slept?” 

Steve lifted his head to glare balefully at her, but it ended up being a wall-eyed stare at her left ear. 

“What day is it?” he slurred.

“Tuesday.” She was wearing black yoga pants and an oversized red T-shirt, probably stolen from Sam. When she crossed her legs, he caught a flash of bare feet. To his surprise, he saw she’d painted her toenails black, though they weren’t chipped like her fingernails. 

“Tuesday?” he grunted. “In that case …”

She waited.

Steve buried his face in one hand. “I have no idea.”

Wanda sighed. “You’re allowed to sleep, you know,” she told him in what he was fairly sure was her brother-lecturing voice. It reminded him uncomfortably of Bucky. “Even super-soldiers need rest.” She sniffed. “And a shower.”

“Not my shift,” he muttered. “No room.” Which was true; Clint was out on recon, Sam was snoring in the safehouse’s tiny twin bed, and Wanda _had_ been asleep in a nest of blankets on the sofa. It wasn’t easy, running a team of rogue Avengers on a shoestring budget.

Black-nailed fingers wrapped around his hand and pulled it away from his face, revealing a pair of impossibly large blue eyes in a small, girlish face. God, Wanda looked young. Everybody was, of course, compared to him—and Bucky—

“It wasn’t your fault,” Wanda said, and for an instant she sounded so much like Peggy that Steve wanted to cry. Every few hours it would hit him again, like a wave rolling over a ship in a storm—he’d lost them both, _again_ , and all the ice in the world couldn’t change that—

He made a little hiccupping sound. Seventy years ago, it would have been the prelude to an asthma attack, but he couldn’t even have a proper fit anymore. 

“ _Hlupak_ ,” Wanda said tenderly. “Come here.”

He didn’t know how it happened, how he ended up on the dirty linoleum, kneeling beside her so he could bury his face in her stomach and let silent, wracking sobs tear through his body. But she bent over him, rubbed circles on his back, let her hair fall over him like a curtain ass he cried all over her like a selfish asshole.

“Not selfish,” she corrected, and that only made him cry harder, because he _was_ selfish, he _was_ , and he destroyed everything around him—

“Shhhh.”

He gave up, for once. He was too tired to fight anybody kind.

It took nearly half an hour for him to cry himself out. He wanted to go on longer—there was a river of grief dammed up in his chest—but his tear ducts needed a break, and he’d pretty well soaked Wanda’s pajama shirt. He sat back, sniffling and rubbing at his face, feeling ashamed of himself. As usual.

“Sorry,” he croaked. He sounded flat and nasal, his nose full of snot. He’d never been a dignified crier.

Wanda mussed his hair and gave him a fond, sad little smile. “I’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it,” she said. “You aren’t to blame.”

“I kinda am, though,” he replied. “I always drag everybody into everything. Buck, Peggy—you and Clint and Sam and—”

“Stop.” She touched a fingertip to the end of his nose. “You’re my family, Steve. You may have superpowers fueled by guilt, but you’re not a bad man.”

Steve clambered awkwardly to his feet and shuffled back to his chair. “You know, when I got the serum, Dr. Erskine made me promise I’d be a good man. I feel like I let him down every day now.” He sat down gingerly, wincing at the creak. 

“We’re alive and free,” Wanda observed.

“That’s a really low bar.” Steve shook his head. “If Bucky was here, he’d fix everything. He just has this knack for looking out for people. I guarantee you, if Bucky was in charge and I was frozen, the fridge would be full, everybody would have a bed, nobody’d ever find us—” He stopped, noticing Wanda’s expression. “What’re you smirking about?”

Wanda looked down, tugging shyly at a lock of her hair. “You’re shouting.”

“Oh, yeah?” _Shouting_ wasn’t often a good sign. It was Wanda’s word for emotional overflow she couldn’t block out— _like someone shouting in a subway car_ , she’d told him once, _right in your ear_ —but if she could smile about it like this, it couldn’t be too bad.

“Yes. He shouted, too. You sound the same, a little.”

Steve frowned. “You—I—what?”

“At the airport,” she explained. “He shouted all through the fight. He was frightened, confused, angry. I think he felt that way often. But there was love, too. He was radiating love for you, and he was so proud of you he thought he might explode.” 

It took Steve a moment to realize the tightness in his cheeks was a pained smile. The feeling was utterly alien. “Really?” he asked.

Wanda chuckled. “It was pretty obvious even to somebody with only five senses.” She flipped her hair off her shoulders and tipped her head to one side, a mannerism she’d picked up from Natasha before Lagos. “We could ask him, if you wanted.”

Steve shook his head. “I wish, right?”

“Steve. I wasn’t kidding.”

He looked up at her. She was smiling again, the rueful what-can-you-do smile she’d shown him when Scott had been stammering out his introductions and had randomly glanced back at Wanda and blurted _I know you, too—you’re great._ As if she _knew_ , on some level, how wonderful she was and was just waiting for the world to catch on. 

“Oh, my God,” Steve said. “You—you can do that?”

She nodded and wiggled her fingers, making the red glow dance. 

“But I thought you had to touch people.”

“I have to touch _new_ people,” she corrected. “It’s easier to establish an old connection than it is to build one from scratch.”

“So you can—talk to him?” He probably looked like a dope, he realized, his heart on his face, but Bucky was frozen and alone and in a foreign country and Steve hadn’t slept and—

“Better,” Wanda said, and wrapped her long, slender fingers around his right hand.

“Do it,” Steve whispered. “Please.” He didn’t even know what he was asking for, and he didn’t care. He trusted Wanda, and he needed Bucky. 

Wanda closed her eyes. 

It felt like the floor had disappeared, and suddenly Steve was falling, tumbling, spinning like a leaf on a fast-moving stream. He was lost in the dark, but everything was bright—he was as big as the universe, as tiny as a mustard seed that moved mountains—he was everywhere and nowhere and nothing was real and everything was real and Wanda was gripping his hand—

And then he heard Bucky scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't despair, lovelies! All will soon be well. Part 2 should be up before Monday, and everyone will be warm and safe and happy by the time it's over. (Well, Steve is probably incapable of being truly happy at the moment, but he'll be shockingly close.)
> 
>  _Hlupak_ —Czech word for "idiot". I have arbitrarily decided that Czech and Sokovian share some vocabulary, including insults. It is also my headcanon that _hlupak_ was something Wanda called Pietro a LOT.


	2. It's Not Safe To Go Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Wanda go adventuring in Bucky's nightmares, and nobody gets what they expected out of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first chapter title was obviously from Daft Punk. This one's a little more obscure, from Captain Tractor's "Memory Street":
> 
> _It's not safe to go alone_  
>  It's not smart to stay too long  
> It can be a pleasant stay  
> But time slips away  
> On Memory Street. 
> 
> It's a surprisingly good soundtrack to this chapter, despite Canadian rock ballads being not at all the right kind of music for this.

Steve knew it was Bucky, even though he’d never heard that particular animal howl pass Bucky’s lips before. When he had fallen from the train, Bucky had screamed in terror; on the helicarrier, when the beam had fallen, the sound had been one of rage and confusion. This was neither of those sounds. This was a scream of pain, and grief, and above all despair. It was high and raw and it went on and on and _on_ , trembling as Bucky fought for breath but _never ever stopping_ because the thing that was making him scream never stopped, either. 

It was the sound of his mind dissolving. It was the sound of Bucky being unmade. 

It was the sound of the Chair.

Steve hadn’t realized his eyes were closed, but he opened them and surged forward before he’d even managed to focus. He needed only an instant to take in the space: that goddamn missile silo in Siberia where Hydra had tortured Bucky all those years when they weren’t keeping him on ice like a side of beef. There were men in lab coats and men in Soviet uniforms, and Bucky was in the Chair. _Bucky_ , not the Winter Soldier. He was arching his back and convulsing and screaming as electricity burned him away, and he had Bucky’s pain and panic in his eyes. 

“ _Zhelaniye_ ,” a man in a red beret announced, and then Steve was running into the chamber, doing the math as he hurled his shield. It sang off his fingertips and caromed off one, two, three heads. Red Beret dropped into a crouch and reached for the pistol on his hip. Steve vaulted over a control board and kicked him so hard in the face that it caved in with a spurt of blood and gristle. He caught his shield on dismount.

“Wanda!” Steve yelled as he turned to face a pair of green-clad soldiers.

“On it!” she shouted back, and red light flashed around the charging men. Steve didn’t wait to see what she’d do; he turned and lunged for the Chair’s controls, slamming his shield’s cutting edge into a fat power cable. Everything sparked, smoked, and went dark as Wanda, now dressed in her combat gear just like Steve, flung out her hands and sent all her opponents flying into the silo walls with sickening thuds and crunches. 

In the Chair, Bucky was sobbing.

Steve rushed over and began ripping away the restraints. As soon as he was free, Bucky flung himself into Steve’s arms, shaking and crying. Steve held him, made choked soothing noises, and watched warily for any signs of further danger. 

“What is this?” he asked Wanda, who was rising from a crouch to walk over to the two of them.

“We’re inside his mind,” she replied. She reached up to where Bucky’s head rested on Steve’s shoulder, face buried in his neck, and stroked the soft dark hair. Bucky flinched away from the touch and burrowed deeper into Steve with a pained murmur. 

“Shh, Buck, it’s okay now,” Steve said into the top of his friend’s head. “We got ’em all. It’s just a nightmare, pal. Just a dream.” He lifted his eyebrows at Wanda: _Right?_

“It’s probably a memory,” Wanda said. “Or a mix of several memories. We have interrupted it, so he should be safe for a while now.”

Steve rubbed at the spot between Bucky’s shoulder blades where he’d always loved it best. “Is it gonna happen again?” he rumbled.

Wanda shrugged. “Probably. I don’t control minds, Steve. I can’t wave my hands and make his memories good ones. I wish I could.” She looked very young all of a sudden, and terribly sad.

“Oh, Buck.” Steve rested his cheek on Bucky’s hair. It felt like puppy fur, always had—thick and soft and warm with life. He’d kidded Bucky about it for years: _That ain’t hair, you mug, that’s a pelt._ How like Hydra to use something so beautiful and so quintessentially _Bucky_ to hide him from the world. 

Bucky’s sobs slowed to whimpers, then snuffles. He began to relax in tiny increments, his body softening where it was pressed against Steve’s chest. Steve concentrated on breathing slow and deep, and kept an eye on Wanda as she picked her way around the chamber, examining things. He was almost sure he saw her lick the glass on one of the other Winter Soldiers’ tanks. Weird. But that was Wanda all over. Weird, but always with a purpose.

“We’ve gotta wake him up,” Steve said finally.

In his arms, Bucky stirred and lifted his head to look Steve in the eye. His own eyes were red with hemorrhage. 

“No,” he croaked. 

“I’m not looking for an argument here, Barnes,” Steve said sternly. “If I’d known this would happen, I’d never have let T’Challa freeze you.”

Bucky shook his head. “It’s not his fault. Don’t you put this on him.”

“I don’t care whose fault it is. It’s gotta stop.” Steve rubbed a little at Bucky’s back, feeling the muscles knotting up again. “Soon as Wanda and I are back at base, I’m calling Wakanda and telling the doctors to wake you up.”

“Don’t.” Bucky was shaking his head faster now, eyes full of warning. “I’m staying right here, I made my goddamn choice—”

“I will fly to Wakanda _myself_ and kiss you awake like _Snow White_ , Buck, see if I _don’t_ —”

“You stubborn sonofabitch, you touch that cryo tube and I’ll—”

“ _Buck!_ ” Steve grabbed Bucky’s head with both hands, holding it firmly in place so he could stare into bloodshot silver-blue eyes. “I am _not_ just gonna _leave you here to be tortured!_ ”

“ _And I’m not gonna wake up and kill you!_ ” Bucky bellowed back, right into Steve’s face.

Steve was just opening his mouth to say something he already knew he’d regret—

“Is this a private argument,” Wanda put in, “or can anybody interrupt?”

They both jumped, jerking so hard that Bucky whacked his head into the bridge of Steve’s nose. They winced in unison, exchanged startled looks, and promptly broke into fits of giggles. 

“D—d’you remember—” Bucky snorted.

“Coney Island,” Steve finished for him, grinning. “The Cyclone, take two.”

“And Becca said—”

“She was gonna start callin’ us Cary and Katherine—”

“And a leopard!” Bucky squeezed his eyes shut and leaned in, snickering into Steve’s muscled chest. “She said if we kept yelling about that damn roller coaster, she’d get us a leopard from the zoo and make us name it Baby—”

“She’d have done it, too,” Steve agreed. “No stoppin’ that girl when she set her cap on something.”

“Shoulda told her to look out for you,” Bucky said softly, and there was a hint of growl in it, a touch of resentment. But he looked at Steve with fond exasperation, and it was such a Bucky expression that Steve had to ruffle his hair to forestall another breakdown. 

“Well,” Wanda said dryly. “I’m glad that makes sense to someone. Bucky, do you _want_ to stay here? Is this—normal?” There was something oddly cautious in her voice.

Bucky’s eyes hardened, and he started at Steve as he answered. “I’m not gonna lie,” he said hoarsely. “It’s like this all the time.”

“What?” Steve whispered. “Buck—”

“It’s like this all the time,” Bucky repeated, “always has been, and I’m _used to it_. I knew what I was getting into when I asked to go back under. I’m not leaving.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Steve demanded.

That earned him a bitter, wraithlike smile. “Oh, I don’t know. Because you’d make that face?”

“You’re a real comedian, Barnes. And I’m getting you out of here.”

“No,” Bucky said simply. “You’re not. Because if you do, we’re both gonna spend every second of every day worrying about Hydra or the CIA or the goddamn Russians or friggin’ SHIELD or—I don’t know, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir—swooping in, flipping my switch, dragging me off to some black site for reprogramming—” He was breathing heavily, speaking faster and faster, voice rising in pitch. “And the first thing they’ll do is use me against you, punk, because the world is shitty like that, and one of us’ll kill the other and then it’s just a question of who’s left to eat his gun and _feel free to check my math!_ ” He was shouting now, seemingly without realizing it, and Steve couldn’t find it in himself to flinch as Bucky sprayed him with spittle and terror. “So I will take a thousand years of torture, Steve, if it means I never have to hurt anybody again, especially you, and that’s not hyperbole because I goddamn _took it already!_ ”

Steve’s arms were still around Bucky somehow, loose enough to permit escape but tight enough to share warmth. Bucky didn’t struggle, though; he just sat and shook. With fear? Rage? Steve couldn’t tell; the feelings were so mixed up that they might as well be emotional slurry.

“I think,” Wanda said softly, “I have a compromise.”

They both looked at her. She looked very young, and terribly uncertain all of a sudden, tangling her fingers together.

“My brother,” she said. “He had nightmares after our parents died. Hydra made them worse.” 

Steve flinched at the name. Bucky didn’t.

“After we got our powers,” Wanda continued, “he let me explore his mind. To learn, you know? To practice. And one day I started to build in there. In his mind.”

Steve couldn’t keep the twitch off his face. Somehow it was even worse than the memory of Wanda twisting his mind to know she’d experimented on Pietro first. The fact that Pietro had volunteered didn’t help. After all, Steve himself had volunteered over and over, and look what had happened. 

Hell, Bucky had only volunteered _once_. 

“What’d you build?” Bucky asked hoarsely.

“A safe place,” Wanda replied. “A—panic room, I suppose. A door that would always be open for him, with a quiet space on the other side of it. An escape.”

“Could you do it again?” Steve asked. 

“I can try,” she said simply. “But I cannot promise anything.”

“I’ll take it,” Bucky said immediately. “What do I have to do?”

“Hold still.”

“Wait.” Steve instinctively curled Bucky closer, remembering the twisted dreams that had nearly destroyed his team. “Buck, you can’t just—”

“Do you trust her?” The silver-blue eyes were still bloodshot, but steady now, and kind, too. Bucky’s eyes. 

Steve felt Wanda’s gaze on him, felt the weight of the question settle on his shoulders like chains. _Did_ he trust Wanda? Not just with his life in battle, or the safety of the team—did he trust her with the most precious thing he had left?

Did he trust her with Bucky?

_My faith has always been in people_ , he’d told Tony, and it had been true. Peggy had kidded him about it a few times. _You have appalling taste in friends, Steve, but impeccable taste in confidantes._ And that was true, too—most of the people he loved and trusted, from Bucky to Peggy to the Commandos to the Avengers and beyond, were what his mother would have called _a touch disreputable_. They were outsiders, troublemakers, square pegs and powderkegs. But the best ones, the ones he chose for himself and kept close for a while, they had never let him down. 

Wanda was looking at him like his next sentence would destroy her.

Steve sighed, smoothed down Bucky’s puppy-soft hair, and said, “Of course I trust her, Buck. I just want you to think this through.”

Bucky snorted. “Okay. Fine.” He pursed his lips, rolled his eyes, and came back to grin saucily at Steve. “All done. Can we do this now?”

Steve huffed in irritation, but he knew when Bucky had made up his mind. He turned to Wanda.

“Do it,” he said.

“Hold him tightly,” she replied. “He needs to feel you.” She closed her eyes, and red tendrils leaped from her fingertips.

Steve wrapped his arms tightly around Bucky, buried his nose in brown hair, and hung on for dear life. But there was no noise, no pain. Bucky didn’t struggle or shake. He stayed relaxed and warm in Steve’s arms, his breathing steady and slow. 

“Finished,” Wanda announced.

Steve lifted his head an instant before Bucky did. They both stared.

In the middle of the torture-chamber wall, set in solidly as if it had always been there, was a plain wooden door, painted white, with a dull bronze knob. It looked vaguely like the door to a shabby summer cottage on Cape Cod, and Steve wondered where Wanda had found the image, because he was pretty sure he and Bucky had never been anywhere like Cape Cod before the war. They’d barely made it as far as Atlantic City that one time. 

But it didn’t matter. Bucky squirmed out of Steve’s arms, jumped down from the Chair, and crossed the room in a few bounding steps, like a dancer hurrying to his mark. He reached for the doorknob, then stopped and looked nervously back at Wanda, biting his lower lip.

“Go on,” she urged as the red glow around her faded. “It will always be unlocked for you, from either side. It’s a safe place, not a cell.”

Bucky nodded and turned back to the door. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and reached out to grasp the knob. It turned with a well-oiled click. The hinges had just enough soft creak to sound real.

Bucky vanished inside. Steve held his breath.

Then he heard Bucky giggle, high and delighted.

“Steve, get in here!”

He didn’t need telling twice. He and Wanda hurried to the door as one. His breath caught in his throat when he saw it.

It was a shabby but mercilessly clean apartment in Brooklyn, and he knew it like he knew the feel of his own tongue. Golden afternoon light streamed through thin curtains, which stirred in a warm breeze— _April_ , he thought, and then, _no, May, first week in May, when the weather used to turn_ —illuminating the sitting room of the last truly happy place he’d known. The mismatched sofa and chairs, patched with Bucky’s tidy stitches overlapping even more mismatched fabric scraps. The scratched-up Crosley radio on its wobbly side-table throne, both items pulled from the garbage along with Steve on a bitter November morning. The pictures nailed up lovingly on the wall—a photo of Bucky and his family, Steve’s favorite sketch of his mother, an assortment of studies and black-and-white copies of artworks Steve had drooled over in museums. And bookshelves stocked with treasures—favorite books from childhood, the baseball Bucky had caught at that game in 1940—a ragdoll Sarah Rogers had carried over from Ireland. The place even _smelled_ the same, like engine grease and lemon oil and the stale bread Bucky used to wheedle out of Mr. Rubinstein and bring home to toast on the stove in the mornings. 

Steve was suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to run around touching everything. _Home. I’m home. We made it home._

Bucky was already sprawled on the couch, grinning at Steve like he’d just swallowed the canary. 

“Paradise or what?” he called. 

Steve felt his throat closing up as he looked around at the world he’d thought he’d never see again. Almost nothing he was seeing had survived his time in the ice, but there it all was, and Bucky in the middle of it. He was still in his horrible Hydra tactical suit, but the color was back in his face, and his vibranium fingertips rubbed absently along the spine of the couch, as if he could feel the texture of the worn velvet. 

Steve felt Wanda step a little closer to him, and his throat opened just enough for him to croak, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she murmured back. “I could do the same for you, you know. Everyone should have a safe place.”

“No,” Steve replied thickly. “No, this is more than enough.” He coughed to open his airway, then raised his voice and called, “What do you think, Buck? Does it pass muster?”

Bucky tipped his head back over the armrest, looking at Steve and Wanda upside down. “That depends,” he said, and the sly smile made Steve’s entire chest ache. “Is there a way I can get a girl in here?”

Wanda’s laughter drowned out Steve’s affronted scoff.

Bucky’s face softened. “All kidding aside,” he said, “thank you both. This is—I don’t deserve this.”

“ _Yes, you do_ ,” Steve and Wanda said in unison. 

Bucky’s eyebrows shot toward his hairline, and his mouth fell open in surprise, which was quite a trick when he was upside down. Another laugh, sudden and bright, burst out of him.

“Well, okay,” he said slowly. “I’m not gonna argue under the circumstances. My folks didn’t raise no dummy.” 

“You sure about that, jerk?” Steve cracked. 

“Nah, that was all Missus Rogers.”

“My mother was a saint and you know it—”

“ _Boys_ ,” Wanda interrupted. 

They stopped, and turned identical sheepish grins on her.

“Sorry, Wanda,” Bucky said. “This is real swell of you. Maybe the nicest thing anybody’s ever done for me.”

He was so earnest, so pathetically grateful, and Wanda was blushing so hard that Steve had to turn away for a moment and take a deep breath to keep from weeping. Which was how he came to be looking at his mother’s doll when he heard Bucky ask:

“Is the red door like this too?”

Steve turned back around.

Wanda was now as pale as marble.

“What?” Bucky asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Where did you see a red door?” Wanda asked, sounding like she was choking.

“Other side of the wipe room, across from this one. What is it? A fire exit or something?”

“No,” Wanda said. “I’m not sure—I don’t know what it is. Don’t go near it, please.”

Bucky frowned. “Okay, but why? What’s it do?”

“I don’t know.” Wanda shook her head.

“But you know it’s bad,” Steve guessed.

“I don’t know that either!” She shot him a sideways look, eyes wide and filling with fear. “My power, it—it does this sometimes. It’s a side effect. But he can leave it alone. It won’t open unless he opens it.”

“But what _is_ it?” Bucky pressed, sitting up. His voice was gentle, but his smile was gone. 

Wanda looked at her shoes. “This place,” she said in a small voice. “It’s made of your memories. It’s a good place from your past, somewhere you know well.”

“And?” Steve prompted. 

Wanda wrapped her arms around herself. “Steve. You remember when we met? The visions?”

“Yeah,” Steve said roughly.

“The one I gave Tony?”

He felt the bottom fall out of his stomach. Just once, Tony had gotten drunk enough to spill the details of that one. The pile of bodies, the shield broken—it was why Tony had changed tacks, probably why he’d supported the Accords. 

“I thought,” Steve said carefully, “that vision was made up.”

“Well.” Wanda shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. I showed him his team scattered, his friends hurt—”

Steve winced at the memory of Rhodey falling.

“The power,” Wanda said quietly, “seems to be a little bit precognitive.”

“Steve?” Bucky asked, clearly expecting a translation.

“It looks like sometimes Wanda can show people their future,” Steve answered. “And if she built a room out of your past—”

“The other one’s the coming-attractions reel,” Bucky finished. He swung his legs off the couch. His boots thumped on the threadbare carpet when he stood up. “Okay. Let’s go.”

“Absolutely not!” Steve scrambled to block the exit. “You’re staying right here where it’s safe! You just said this was paradise!”

“Yeah, and now I’m gonna take a peek at hell,” Bucky retorted. 

“Buck, no! What good’s it gonna do?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Gee, I dunno. Maybe tell me what awful shit’s coming down the pike so I can avoid it? Seems like a useful thing to know.”

“What if you can’t avoid it?” Steve demanded. “You’ll be making yourself miserable for no good reason.” He planted his feet, ready to fight. 

Bucky studied him for a moment, his expression soft and maybe a little fond. Finally, he said, “You remember the night before I shipped out?”

Steve shook his head. 

“’Course you do. I found you in that stinking alley, told you to get cleaned up. You asked where we were goin’, and I said … ?”

Steve scowled. 

Bucky tilted his head and smiled patiently.

“The future,” Steve admitted, grudgingly.

“It’s all I ever wanted, Steve,” Bucky said kindly. “The future, and my best friend. You gonna make me choose now, is that it?”

Steve squeezed his eyes shut against the prickling of tears. “No, Buck, you know I’d never—”

A cool metal hand came down on his right shoulder and squeezed. 

“Come on,” Bucky coaxed. “Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it, right? Together.”

Steve shook his head. “Buck, I can’t, I—”

The hand was suddenly gone.

“Steve,” Wanda said urgently as the hinges creaked, and Steve was already spinning and opening his eyes just in time to see Bucky storming across the mindwipe chamber, long hair flying. He vaulted the Chair and came up fast, heading for the red door in the opposite wall, and before Steve had time to do more than think _You were always so fast, it’s why I could never catch up—_

“Lock it!” Steve ordered, but it was too late.

Bucky kicked the door open. Just reared back, cocked a leg, and _crunch_. He marched through the remains of the red door before Steve had cleared the white one. He scrambled across the chamber, Wanda at his heels, bracing himself for God only knew what—

He heard the music first. Soft and jazzy, the kind of sound he’d come to associate with Sam’s playlists. Then he saw. 

The room was long and a bit low, with exposed beams and a big fieldstone fireplace that made him think of a hunting lodge. There was a single log crackling low. The hearth was surrounded by soft-looking couches, as if people were meant to sit around the fire and talk without benefit of television, although the music suggested a high-end sound system in the otherwise rustic room. There were colorful rugs on the floor and colorful blankets thrown over the couches and sunlight slanting through the windows and the sound of muffled voices and clinking dishes from other rooms, but none of that mattered somehow because Steve’s brain was screaming _Look is that who we think it is?!_

Bucky was there, of course, frozen just inside the dor as if he couldn’t process the peaceful scene. But he wasn’t the main event. Once Steve had given Bucky a cursory once-over to make sure no red splinters had lodged anywhere vital, he returned his attention to the room. 

The Brooklyn apartment had been unoccupied, except for the three of them. But apparently Bucky’s future had a much larger population.

Sam was stretched out on a couch, apparently asleep, a garish red and blue afghan tossed haphazardly over him. A lean black cat lazed above him, one paw dangling down the cushions to brush at the top of his buzzed head. As Steve studied him, he heard a burst of laughter from an adjoining room that sounded like Clint. But neither Sam nor the cat nor Clint seemed to be holding Bucky’s attention. That honor went to the couch nearest the window, and its occupants.

Steve stared at himself.

It was definitely him, and God, it was weird to be in two places at once. _Is this what an out-of-body experience is like?_ he wondered. If it was, he damn well wanted back _in_ , because Other Steve was lying on his back with his head pillowed in the lap of a dark-haired woman with deep red lipstick and a look like she knew all the world’s secrets.

_Peggy._

As he watched, Other Steve reached up to tangle his fingers in the delicate silver chain around Peggy’s neck, playing with her pendant: a silver star, gleaming bright. Peggy pushed his hand away and leaned down to kiss him, slowly and with intent, on the lips. 

Steve found himself counting Mississippis as Peggy’s lipstick smeared against Other Steve’s mouth. 

Bucky came unstuck then, shook himself like a dog and walked over to the middle of the semicircle of couches. There was a sheepskin on the floor in front of the hearth, and he plopped right down on it, crossing his legs and setting his elbows on his knees to watch the show with a little smile. 

“I don’t understand,” Steve mumbled to Wanda. “How can this be the future?” He almost said _She’s gone_ , but he tried to avoid saying that. Saying it made it more real somehow. 

“It’s not always literal,” Wanda said quietly. “And it’s partly made of his memories still, reusing images. Maybe that’s just how he thinks of any woman who loves you.”

“He thinks they’re all—?”

“Perhaps. Or she made the greatest impression on him.”

“She sure made an impression on me,” Steve croaked.

“Yes,” Wanda replied. “That much was obvious.”

They stood in silence for a few moments, watching the tableau. Finally Wanda cleared her throat. 

“Bucky,” she said, “Steve needs to leave soon. Are you staying here?”

“Is this room gonna stick around?” Bucky replied.

“As far as I know, yes. And if it doesn’t, you can always go back to the door you _didn’t_ break.”

Bucky grinned at her. “Then yeah. This is aces. You’re a real peach, Wanda.” His eyes flicked to Steve’s. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

Steve realized belatedly that his cheeks were wet. He shook his head, but Bucky was already standing up and crossing the room to throw his arms around him. There was no point after that; Steve gave up and cried into Bucky’s shoulder while Bucky held him close.

“Still not selfish,” Wanda remarked from off to one side.

Steve snorted a laugh and left snot on Bucky’s tac suit. 

It took a few minutes to calm down, and he noticed the kissing was still on when Bucky finally let him go. Whoever was in their future, she was committed. Other Steve had just clocked more kissing than Steve himself had done in his entire life. Which, granted, wasn’t a lot. Only Peggy, that crazy blonde private, Sharon, and—

Natasha sauntered in, and Bucky turned as if on a string.

Wanda made a surprised sound as Natasha strolled up to Bucky, cupped his jaw on one side, and gave him a lazy kiss. Bucky leaned into it.

“I think,” Wanda said, “we should go.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. He was on the brink of needing a cold shower. “We’ll be back before you know it, Buck. Take care of yourself.”

Bucky broke off the kiss to give him a slightly sloshed grin. “You know,” he said, “I think I’m gonna be okay.” 

“You’re incorrigible,” Steve told him.

“You incorrige me,” he replied. 

Natasha chose that moment to wrap her fingers around Bucky’s metal wrist and draw him toward an empty couch. Bucky went willingly, wearing a look of almost religious ecstasy. 

Wanda steered Steve out, and the darkness swallowed them, and then Steve opened his eyes. 

He was curled in a ball on the linoleum, and Wanda was shaking herself awake on the chair above him.

“My God.” She rubbed at her temples. “I need to sleep for a week.”

“Me too,” Steve agreed before he noticed his lips were moving.

“Really?” Wanda looked up and beamed at him.

Steve thought for a moment. His eyes were still burning and his limbs were still heavy, but he felt— _lighter_ , somehow. Unburdened. 

“Yeah,” he said honestly, and Wanda looked ready to light up a small city with the wattage of her smile. 

She helped him up and gave him a sisterly kiss on the cheek, and if there was a little crimson tingle in it, well, she’d had a hard day. And he didn’t mind, as Wanda trudged back to her sofa, that it wasn’t his shift. He’d been able to sleep anywhere, once, and suddenly he felt like he could do that again.

He stretched out on the living-room floor, tossed a blanket over himself, and was sound asleep in less than five minutes.

He slept for ten hours, dreaming of Bucky’s laughter, of the taste of lipstick on his mouth, and of shining silver stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -The movie Steve and Bucky giggle over is 1938’s _Bringing Up Baby_ , a screwball comedy starring Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn in which the two of them are accidentally saddled with a pet leopard named Baby and basically they bicker their way through the whole movie. It’s probably the ultimate screwball comedy, if you don’t count the Marx Brothers. I highly recommend it. 
> 
> -Becca is one of Bucky’s younger sisters, in case you didn’t know. 
> 
> -The pictures in the apartment are black and white because Steve was colorblind before the war—red-green colorblindness is the most common form, especially for males—and so it is my headcanon that colorblindness plus poverty equals lots of black-and-white art. 
> 
> -The baseball game where Bucky caught the ball is the one Steve hears in the recovery room in the post-credits scene from _Captain America: The First Avenger_. 
> 
> -Steve and Bucky’s remembered conversation about the future comes from _Captain America: The First Avenger_. 
> 
> -Credit (or blame) where it’s due: the SF writer John Varley used to have a sign on his desk saying, “Incorrigible punster: Do not incorrige.” He and Spider Robinson (or was it he and Theodore Sturgeon?) were once thrown out of a restaurant for refusing to quit punning.
> 
> -Come be my friend on Tumblr and Instagram! I am onethingconstant there, and in April I posted a commissioned art piece on Instagram showing Peggy with the silver star necklace. (The pendant was the artist's idea. I liked it so much that I wrote it in, and bought one for myself.)


End file.
